A fond farewell, and a big hello!

First off I want to thank Kimberly for the fabulous creations she produced with the Seaside Cottage kit throughout March. What an amazing array of beautiful things she had to share! Thank you so much Kimberly for all your hard work, and sweet, easy going disposition! You are such a doll!! :)

Next up, I would like to announce that we have Anabelle O'Malley as our guest designer for April! She is working with the Sonoma County Kit (I still have a few left), and will be posting up every Thursday throughout the month to bring you some extra inspiration and ideas as to how to use your kit! I am a big fan of Anabelle's work, and I am thrilled that she is joining us! Please join me in welcoming her!

Project Runway Challenge and a Tutorial!

Good morning and happy Wednesday to you! I have a LO to share with you of my cutie pie niece! I created this as part of this week's Project Runway challenge. We were to take an episode and get inspired by it! I chose the episode where the designers were to use burlap. I didn't have real burlap. So I bought a roll of cross stitching fabric, which sort of looks like burlap! I also did lots of stitching here and chose a "fashion" picture! (She is quite ready for the runway don't you think?) I used Noel's Paper Doll kit.....which is sold out. I will also share with you how I made all of these glittery, dimensional flowers! So read on! : )

First you need your "burlap." (Do any of you have actual real burlap in your house? If you do, I would really like to know why! Practicing those sack races or somethin'? LOL! ) You will also need flower stamps and ink pads. Now for mine, I used Papertrey Ink stamps and dies, but any flower stamp and a good pair of fabric scissors will work too! I rolled my "burlap" out and stamped like a crazy woman! I figured, I would make bunches of these flowers in different sizes and save them for future projects!

Then I quickly cut the flowers and leaves into squares. It makes it so much easier to cut it!

I started making piles of flowers/leaves. :)

Now that you have your flowers cut, let's make them glittery, shall we? Start with your "naked" flower.

Grab some glue and clear glitter.......this is what I used for mine.

Slap that glue on your flower......it will get a bit messy!

Scrunch the base of flower and start pulling and curling your individual petals. We are adding dimension to the flower that will last......since the glue will harden and hold its shape!

Play around until you get the achieved dimension you would like.....then place it on wax paper....so it doesn't stick!

Then......dump the glue on top!

Once it is dry, shake excess glitter off and dress up your flowers with brads, buttons, rhinestones......layer them, or leave them be. Whatever you like! You don't have to glitter them either.......but the glue is great for holding the flower's shape, so it doesn't flatten out!

You will be seeing more of my burlap flowers on future projects......since I made like 90 bajillion of them! LOL!

Have a great day!!!

One last thing before I go....

I have really enjoyed being the Guest designer for Noel Mignon here this past month!
I'm lucky to be a Guest on a month with and extra week in it...so I get to share one more little thing with you all.

Here is a card I created with this AMAZING kit.





Thank you all for having me...This has been so much fun to Design with all these talented and wonderful women here.

Lots of love and blessings,
Kimberly Neddo

Making Your Own Backgrounds

Today I am going to show you two tips for making your very own background patterns. :) Can you spot the two techniques I used on this page?



For the first technique, I pulled out my Sea Monkey Vibez by Shimmerz Paints. We're all familiar with misting our cardstock, . . . this time I will be using a mask to create a pattern on my page.

I used my Silhouette to out a large polka dot pattern to use as a stencil. If you don't own an electronic cutting machine you could also create a polka dot pattern using the grommet punch by Making Memories.



Lightly tape your pattern to your cardstock. Use additional sheets of paper or paper towels to cover up the exposed edges of cardstock sticking out past the edges of your mask. Covering the edges will ensure that you won't get a line of "overspray" while you are misting. Spritz the openings with your Vibez spray ink. If you need to, move and line up your pattern around the page until you reach the desired result.




For my second technique, I decided to use acrylic stamps to create my own patterned paper.

First, I created a document on my computer that looks like a large scale sheet of graph paper. I used the "hairline" line thickness at 20% opacity in a grid across the entire sheet. The lines are spaced 0.5" apart. Print your graph onto white cardstock. You will be stamping directly onto this sheet. The grid marks will help you keep your pattern straight and even.



Next, choose one or more stamps to work with. I chose the spiky flower stamp from this stamp set called "Spunky Nature" by My Cute Stamps . I used an ink pad that contained several coordinating colors by My Mind's Eye. I stamped directly on top of the grid, using the lines to position my image. When the design is complete, the graph underneath will be barely noticeable. Now you are ready to incorporate your custom patterned paper into your next papercrafting project!



And here is my completed page! Everything else on this page is from the NEW Sonoma County Kit . There are just a few left! Pick yours up in the Noel Mignon online store HERE .






Thanks for coming by today!
Have a great week!
Jana Eubank

Some Sonoma County for you!

Good Sunday Morning everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your weekends. The weather here has "sprung" and we have birds singing, the leaves sprouting, and temps in the low 70's...YAY!
This first LO I have to share is done with Sonoma County plus a few extras from older kits. The letters are from Penny Arcade, the lace is from Paper Doll, and the buttons are from my stash. I lifted a LO I saw in SB trends done by Lori Carlson...hers was so cute, I just had to give it a try!




This one was for last weeks digi lift challenge. I did add some Prima gems and a journaling card from my stash. Other than that, everything is from the Sonoma Kit.




This one is done entirely with the kit (other than the OA card I added in the title)





Also....I want to be sure to point you over to Robin's blog! She has been using the Sonoma kit over the last week and came up with an absolutely brilliant idea for an album cover! So many possibilities there...Thanks for sharing Robin!!

Hope you all have a great week!

My Extended Family :)

Without revealing to much this is my layout for the new challenge that will be out tomorrow. Be sure to check back here and participate. I promise you it will be so much fun!

This is using the paper doll kit and a glimpse into some my sewing machines that respectively have names. Sergio and Ethel..poor Lucy was left out because i just use her now to sew with specialty threads. Thor was also left out because i am going to do a page specifically on him and my love of embroidering anything i can get my hands on. :)






(using the sold out seaside cottage kit)
A few weeks back noel sponsored a new sketch site called Sketch Inspiration and we were lucky enough to work with the current sketch and this was my take on it.

See you next week with some goodies using the Sonoma County Kit

Using Movies as Jumping Off Points

We watch a lot of kids movies in our home (what a shocker, I know!), and because there are certain ones that have become an ingrained part of our family life, I want to make sure to include phrases and titles from them in my layouts, even if the layout itself isn't about that particular movie. It still will bring back a sense of the time frame in our life when I look back at these layouts in the future.

I used the Maya Road stamp & ink pad to add this little detail strip on the layout.
All made (except for the Pink Paislee alphas from my stash) with the Sonoma County kit!

Friday Color Scheme

Happy Friday!  The weekend is here!  Yippee!  I have a color scheme for you.  I don't know about you but when I am inspired by color schemes.  I love to see new color combos together.  I am always on the lookout for some and I also love putting some together as well.  That is what I did here.

I took this layout...

and I came up with this color scheme...

I love the mix of soft colors and the punch of red and yellow.  Give it a try:)  Link them here if you do I would love to see.

Michelle